


Strung Together

by Dancains



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Butch/Femme, F/F, Femslash, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 23:37:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15762063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancains/pseuds/Dancains
Summary: Edith contemplates a shift in Oswin's fashion choices. Oswin lends her a beautiful fur stole.





	Strung Together

**Author's Note:**

> Complete genderswap AU. Ive been taking a short break from writing but just decided I wanted to finish up and post this one shot I apparently started in March. My first time writing f/f with this much detail, so I hope the word choice and such reads okay. Mostly I just really wanted an AU with a butch lesbian version of Oswald. Enjoy!
> 
> Edit: there are some minor issues with italics and formatting right now that it won't let me fix so..ignore that for the time being

In the days and weeks that passed between her own liberation from Arkham, and the city's upcoming mayoral election, Edith had noticed a gradual difference in Oswin’s appearance.

  
They were subtle details: Oswin’s hair styled into some feathery, feminine thing, instead of being slicked to the side like it usually was, or her slacks, more often then not, being traded in for a modest pencil skirt.

She even noticed the sparkling of pearl earrings in Oswin’s lobes, something she had never observed before.

These small alterations confounded her.  
It would had been an entirely different matter, of course, if it had just been the natural evolution of Oswin's style, according to some changing preference or whim.

But Edith had suspected that these minor changes had been part of a greater shift in Oswin’s public image, molding herself into what the mayor of Gotham was supposed to look like, the type of woman that Gotham’s citizens would support and sympathize with. A sort of...softened version of Oswin Cobblepot.

Edith saw what she liked to think of as her own softened version of Oswin, from time to time--not through the aide of cosmetics and sensible heels, but through the small, kind things Oswin did for her each day, and the warm, sisterly smile that she would direct at only Edith. Though, for some reason, Edith didn’t like to think of their friendship as being sisterly.

How odd, she mused, what closer could two women be if not sisters? The type borne not by blood but by bond, she told herself. Edith supposed they were that type.

She had felt different all her life, in a way that seemed impossible to quantify, a pariah who now found a kindred soul in another outcast. The difference between them was that whatever it was that had set them apart from the rest of the world, Oswin had decided to wear it on her sleeve, while Edith had pushed it into a little box, pressed so tight that it had only escaped erratically in spurts and fits. Now that she was with Oswin--working with her and living with her and seemingly breathing her like air--she felt as if she didn’t have to hide anything away, and never would have to again.

  
Presently, it had been some time since Oswin’s victory, and Edith had slipped into her role in as chief of staff and all around right-hand-woman as easily as one pulls on a well fitted glove.

  
It wasn't uncommon for them to attend black tie events in the name of public service, but Edith was pleasantly surprised one night to see Oswin standing ready in the foyer, not in a modest gown but one of her customary dark suits.

  
The suits Oswin wore had always utterly fascinated her, and had been one of the unique features, along with her colorful criminal record, that had first drawn her across the GCPD bullpen into Oswin’s wake and proximity, all those months ago. Now she wondered if whatever had piqued her interest had less to do with the garments themselves but the way Oswin carried herself when she wore them.

  
Edith has always thought that words like "suave" or "debonair" had a ridiculous air to them; she had associated them with self-important men who strutted around like peacocks in their flashy suits and ties, but somehow these words suited Oswin in all her natural power and poise. They were worn less like a shield and more like a badge of honor.

  
Oswin turned to face her, her eyes alight. "Edie, you look lovely."

  
Edith ducked her head shyly. Strange, she should be used to these compliments by now, given to her so freely and so often.

  
"If that's true," said Edith, "it's only because you've picked out such beautiful dresses for me."

What she was wearing was a deep emerald color, and she had spent an embarrassing amount of time turning in front of the mirror, watching each inch of it catch the glinting light in its wavering sheen.

  
Oswin made a clucking noise with her mouth, almost like a chiding mother. "I'd say that has very little to do with it."

  
Edith didn't now what to say. "Do you think it's going to be cold?" she asked instead. "I was looking for a wrap or a light sweater but I didn't think anything I had looked appropriate with this."

  
"I have just the thing," Oswin told her, "wait here a moment."

  
When she returned, she wrapped a thick fur stole around Edith's shoulders. She backed away to examine Edith, her expression hard to read.

  
Edith wondered if it was one of the things Oswin had inherited from her mother, the elusive Emma Van Dahl. "Thank you," she managed to whisper, still taken aback by the kind gesture.  
Oswin smiled sheepishly. "Of course. We should probably get going." 

Hours after the gala, Edith laid in bed, still in her dress and wrap.

She barely remembered anything from the event, only how proud and powerful she had felt with Oswin's arm linked through hers. Oswin sitting across from her, expertly eating oysters from their half-shells and sipping white wine. Edith had politely avoided the appetizer, having never eaten them before and being unsure of how to properly extract the buttery, briny delicaly from its shell.

  
Illogically, she had the fanciful thought that one of them might contain a shining, white pearl. Perhaps Oswin would find it in the very last oyster on the plate and bring it home as her prize. She would have it made into a cuff link, though it would look odd without a pair.

Back at the mansion, Edith was enjoying the feeling of the fur against her unclothed shoulders, hazily running her fingers across the short, soft sable. It almost felt too fine across her skin, as if she wasn’t deserving of such a luxury.

Spurned by this thought, she tiptoed in bare feet down the hall to the master bedroom and knocked gently on the door. Oswin answered it, still in her shirt and trousers, but no waistcoat or tie.

Edith had the stole lazily wrapped around her shoulders and arms, leaving more skin exposed than covered against the mansion's drafts and chills.

  
"Could I come in?"

Wordlessly, Oswin stepped back to allow her entry.

  
"I thought I should return this, and properly thank you again for letting me wear it."

  
She slipped it off and held it out to Oswin, who looked...surprised? Disappointed? For all the time that she had spent studying her--studying every minute twinge of her mouth and flash of her eyes--Edith was disappointed in her self that she couldn’t decipher every one of Oswin’s emotions with just a glance. She would certainly have to devote herself to more observation.

  
“I don’t want it back.”

Slightly affronted, Edith put it back on.

"Edie, what I meant was...when I gave it to you, I intended for you to keep it. It’s a gift.”

Edith blinked in surprise. “Really? That’s too kind of you.”

“How could I not give it to you? You look absolutely regal...if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  
She felt a dangerous flush across her face, so burning hot that her ears must have been red.

“I don’t know why anyone would mind that. Thank you, Oswin.” That damnable stutter that she thought she had outgrown was creeping back into her voice, Edith belatedly realized.

  
Oswin nodded thoughtfully. “If you wanted me to hold on to it though, I could. I’m not sure how much room there is in the armoire in your room.”

  
“Yes,actually, I would appreciate that.”

  
She made to remove it again, but Oswin had taken the two short steps between them to ease it off of her shoulders and carefully fold it in half. She laid it over the back of a nearby chair.

  
Edith studied her as she moved, her gaze traveling up and down Oswin’s bespoke silhouette as her attention was occupied. Her fingers had only just brushed Edith's shoulders, but the warm, faint memory of them remained.

  
“There’s something else you could help me with,” Edith suddenly ventured, “if you don’t mind, that  
is.”

“Anything,” Oswin breathed.  
Edith turned so her back was facing the other woman. She raised a hand over her shoulder and gestured behind herself. “I had a bit of trouble zipping this up earlier tonight. Could you help me take it off?”

  
She thought she heard Oswin’s breath catch in her throat, but she might have imagined the sound.

“Yes...yes, of course.”

  
She felt Oswin move closer to her again, and a light tug on her dress’ zipper. It didn’t feel as if it had been unzipped.

  
“Oh dear, it might be stuck," Oswin whispered.

“Well, give it another try, at least,” Edith instructed innocently.

  
Oswin laid a steadying hand on her waist, pulling the zipper harder this time. Oswin gradually worked it down the line of her back, and she felt cool air against her skin, almost negated completely by the closeness of Oswin’s body heat.

  
As Oswin moved to draw her hand from her companion’s waist, Edith held it there, covering it with her own. She could feel the warm, uneven staccato of Oswin’s breath against the back of her neck.

Edith suddenly realized why she had come to Oswin's room, as if she hadn't wanted to admit her intentions to even herself until that moment.

  
Slowly she drew Oswin’s hand up the smooth sheen of her dress, over the flat of her belly and finally to cover the rounded swell of one of her clothed breasts.

She felt, more than heard, a choked gasps behind her. Oswin’s fingers cupped and squeezed her, gently exploring, while her other hand came tentatively to Edith's waist.

“Do you really want this?” Oswin whispered, sounding incredulous.

  
Edith nodded vigorously, forgetting Oswin couldn’t see her face, and took Oswin’s other hand in hers, as if to make her point.

The other woman drew her body flush against Edith's back, as Edith brought the hand to her other breast. A sigh escaped her lips, and Oswin began touching her in earnest.

At the same time, Edith felt the hot press of open mouthed kisses in between her shoulder blades, then on her shoulder and the side of her neck, below where her chestnut curls were pinned into an elaborate up-do.

  
She threw her head back with a gasp, and Oswin nuzzled her face against the bare expanse of Edith's neck. Using a gentle hand to angle her chin, Oswin finally kissed her on the edge of her mouth, the feeling like an electric shock.

  
"I had no idea that you..." Oswin managed in between kisses. "I mean, I wasn't sure..." Edith tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. "I had been planning to tell you, over wine and a candlelit dinner."

  
Edith turned so they were facing each other. "Does that mean you want to stop?"

"God, no." Her hands were shaking as she cupped Edith's face and pulled her into another kiss.

  
Edith toyed with the collar of her dress shirt. "Can I..?" she whispered, when they had pulled away for air.

Oswin nodded, still dazed. Edith had helped her dress many times before, but this was certainly new territory.

Oswin kissed her, as Edith slowly undid each button and pushed the shirt from her shoulders, letting her hands linger over the pale, freckled skin.

  
Edith was mildy surprised to find she wasn't wearing a bra, just a thin sleevless undershirt tucked into her trousers.

She felt a burning heat pool in her stomach at the sight, Oswin's firm bare arms and the pink of her peaked nipples just visible through the fabric. Absently, Edith suspected that seeing Oswin in something like lace or frilly lingerie wouldn't have half of this effect on her.

Edith's hands lingered in the small space between them, an unspoken request lodged in her throat.

  
Oswin shucked the dress shirt off of her elbows where the bunched fabric had caught. She let it fall to the floor. "Of course. You don't need to ask."

  
Daringly, Edith untucked the undershirt, slipping her splayed fingers under its tightness and up the quivering plane of Oswin's abdomen, marveling at how tantalizingly warm and alive Oswin felt.

Reverently she swiped a thumb against one of her nippples, causing Oswin to let out a satisfied groan. She pulled Edith into another kiss, languid yet insistent, as an eager tongue pressed through the seam of her lips.

Edith heard herself moan around it, a high keening noise she barely recognized, as she further explored the plump, heavy swell of Oswin's breasts.

  
Oswin's own hand, the one that wasn't steady at the line of her jaw, drifted down Edith's dress again, smoothing down the front of it.

Edith gasped as Oswin gently used her short nails to scrape down the length of her bare thigh, moving up again to paw at the hem of her dress. Edith shivered.

"Please," she whispered against Oswin's cheek, not entirely sure what she was asking for. Something. Anything. More of the heat and friction that crackled in the air between them, this feeling that had been building between them from even the first time they had met.

  
"Oh, Edie. Anything for you," Oswin murmured, her voice tender yet heated. She pushed a hand under Edith's dress and in between her legs, stroking with the pads of her fingers at the warm wetness there, through Edith's thin underwear.

  
<i>"Ah," <i> Edith gasped, her legs almost buckling. <i>"Ye-es."</i>

Too far gone to be embarassed at the hitching in her voice, she pushed needily into the touch, erratically nudging herself against the neat circular motion Oswin was rubbing into her clit.

  
Oswin pressed her face to Edith's long slender neck, breathing in the newly forming beads of sweat as they mingled with her perfume. When she spoke the words vibrated against Edith's skin. "Is that good? Do you like that?"

  
"Yes, yes, yes-" Edith whined. She felt her self embarassingly close to climax.

She let out a gasp of annoyance as Oswin suddenly pulled her hand away. Oswin leaned up on her tip toes to press a coy, playful kiss to Edith's nose.

  
"Os-"

"Shh, I want to try something else I think you'll like." Unfastening her trousers, she slipped them off,  
revealing dark boxer-briefs.

Edith's eyes traveled down her body, fair, sinewy legs she hadn't seen since Oswin's recovery in Edith's apartment, a soft feathering of unshaven hair and the familliar web of scars on her ankle.

  
She watched, slightly confused as Oswin took a few steps across the room and reclined on the large, plush bed. Oswin beckoned Edith over with the crook of two fingers--the ones that had just become intimately aquainted with the juncture of Edith's legs.

Edith's head swam. It was something out of a fantasy she had been denying herself for far too long.

  
Oswin motioned for her to stop as she came close to the bed. "Take off you panties." It was gentle but still commanding.

  
Her ears red, Edith instantly obeyed, hooking a hand under her short evening gown and shimmying them off. She ignored how heavy and damp the fabric was as she let fall in a bunch to the floor.

Nervous and excited she climbed onto the bed without prompting, hovering above Oswin, who was equally flushed, her short hair in dissaray from the earlier clench of Edith's fingers. Oswin was enraptured, her gaze heavy-lidded as she had watch Edith partially undress.

  
"Perfect. Come up here, a little higher."

Edith suddenly realized what Oswin planned to do. "Are you sure you want me to?"

  
"Not if you don't feel comfortable, of course...But, <i>God,</i> I want to taste you so badly." The deep rasp of her voice made Edith's toes curl.

  
Biting her lip, Edith nodded fervently. Oswin's simple, enthusiastic desire had soothed some of insecurites that had been runing through her mind.

  
As Oswin laid back with her head on a pillow, Edith eased onto her, straddling Oswin's stomach.

  
"I don't-" Edith's words stumbled, not quite sure how to say what she wanted to. "I don't shave or, or wax or anything, just so you know..."

  
"Edie," Oswin hummed, instantly comforting. She left out a laugh-like huff of breath. " That's more  than fine. You're perfect. Every inch of you." She ran a hand up Edith's arm soothingly, another tentatively up her thigh.

"...Especially that big beautiful brain of yours. But, to be perfectly honest, that's not the part of your body I'm most interested in right now."

  
Edith let out a laugh, pure and genuine. She bent over and pressed a quick kiss to Oswin's lips, overly aware of how her body fel cold and exposed to the room as her dress rode up.

Goosebumps ran up and down her legs, oddly tantalizing. She sat back down.

  
"Mmh, now come sit up here," murmured Oswin.

Self conciously, she planted her knees on either side of Oswin's face, seeing a flash of pure hunger in her pale eyes before easing herself onto Oswin's mouth.

  
The feeling was instantaneous, like a shock of electricity through Oswin's togue as she lapped against Edith's already-wet folds, parting them with her tongue.

 Oswin hummed as she licked and sucked, the same sounds that she would sometimes make over a breakfast of fine, sugary pastries, but now a thousand times more obscene.

Teasingly, Oswin slowly moved up and down with the flat of tongue, just barely nudging Edith's clit with each stroke. She seemed to be reveling in the very taste of it, her hands going to Edith's thighs to keep her firmly in place.

Suddenly, she began to suck on the clit, focusing all of her careful atttentions on the most sensitive part of Edith's body.

Edith felt her whole body quiver at the over-stimulation, her hands blindly gripping the headboard of the bed to keep her upright.

  
One of the straps of her dress had slipped down her shoulder, baring part of her chest. She reached to pinch one of her own nipples, clumsily tugging at it to stave off the intensity she was feeling below.

She couldn't help buck her hips, her warm slick dripping into Oswin's mouth as her own let out a slew of loud, lewd noises.

At the same time, Oswin's hands moved up and down her body, reaching and stroking and caressing any part of it she could.

Edith gasped as they found the pert curve of her ass and gave it a firm squeeze. The tip of Oswin's tongue was now pushing at her entrance, a feeling both unfamiliar and utterly fascinating.

  
As one of Oswin's hands left her cheeks, Edith looked back over her shoulder to watch Oswin roughly rub at her own cunt over her briefs.

  
The tangible evidence of just how aroused Oswin was by what she was doing pushed Edith even closer to her climax.Her whole body clenching, the tight, hot feeling in her core threatened to bubble over, almost like the thrumming of boiling water. She whimpered as she came, her fingers gripping deathly tight in Oswin's hair.

  
Oswin continued to lap wetly at her clit until Edith had fully rode out her long orgasm, until she was trembling from over sensitively.Coming down from her euphoric high just slightly, she dismounted from Oswin's face and kneeled beside her.

  
"Are you okay?" Edith blustered, still panting, "I didn't suffocate you, did I?"

Oswin had a self-satisfied grin plastered to her face. Instead of immediately answering, she took her time to lick at the spit and come that had dribbled down her chin, finally swiping at the remnants with the back of her hand.

"Am <i>I</i> okay?" She responded, sitting up to bring herself face to face with Edith. Oswin laughed sweetly. "I'm better than I've ever been." She gently tucked one of Edith's loose ringlets of hair behind one ear, then gently cupped her cheek. Her gaze turned serious, searching. "How are <i>you</i>?"

"I'm- I'm...." Edith started, but she had no idea how to express how she was feeling. Elated. Ecstatic. Joyous. Rapturous. Decadent. Debauched. Curious at how their relationship might continue and progress, both physically and emotionally. Edith thought she might be in love. No, she knew she was.

Oswin took her silence in stride, nodding. She understood.

Tentatively, Edith kissed her, feeling it returned with an aching tenderness.

She was intrigued by her own taste on Oswin's tongue. Like salt and sweat and a hint of something sweet, perhaps a lingering ghost of that evening's wine. The gala suddenly felt like it had been eons ago, instead of a few brief hours.  
  
"I want to do something for you too," Edith whispered against her lips, when the kiss subsided. "I need you to show me how, though. How you want me to get you off," she added shyly.

  
She heard something like a growl from the back of Oswin's throat. "What on earth did I do to deserve you?" She murmured, half to herself. "We can start off slow. Just using your hands. You don't know how long I've wanted those long, beautiful fingers inside me. It certainly doesn't hurt that you keep them so nicely trimmed."

Oswin turned one over in her own gentle, loving grip, before releasing it. Edith had never thought of them as particularly enticing before, and had no idea Oswin had ever even had a single thought about them.

  
She flushed with a buoyant excitement as Oswin moved to strip off her boxer-briefs and toss them aside. The masculine garment made the smooth, sensual curves hidden underneath all the more enticing.

As Oswin guided her, showing her how to pump her fingers in and out of the delicious tightness of her entrance, showing her how to give and receive pleasure in turn, Edith realized that she had found her own gleaming pearl, one far more valuable than any stone or gem in the world.  



End file.
